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Minor Leagues

Drive Time, Gratuitous Chick Pics

As Loyal Readers know, when it comes to auto racing I’m a devotee of Formula 1, with only the occasional branch line into Le Mans and WEC.

Therefore I have been unaware of the kind of driver in the “lesser” racing formats, and have therefore missed a couple of good ones.

First up, let’s look at Lindsey Brewer:

Then we have Toni Breidinger:


  

Finally, the “old lady” (b. 1989) of this genre, Shannon McIntosh:

 

I need to stop being so closed-minded about this racing thing, and broaden my horizons a little, so to speak.

Manufacturing

Entertainment, History

Am I the last man to discover the excellent War Factories series on the Eeeewww Choob?

If you haven’t watched it, kiss your weekend goodbye, as I did last weekend.

You can thank me later.

There’s also the sulky-looking and acerbic Alexandra Churchill to be seen occasionally.  She really, really hates the Nazis from the 1940s — and who can blame her?

Oh, and she’s definitely not related to WSC:

 

If this is the New Breed of Lady Historians, bring it on.

Rifle Conundrum

Boomershoot

So having taken care of my carry gun problem, I turn now to the Boomershoot 2023 ULD situation.  Unfortunately, this leads me to another fork in the road.

But first, let me take care of the easy stuff.

Rifle type (bench vs. hunting):  Almost everyone said they had the “hunting” thing taken care of.  What they wanted was a bench-type rifle.  Check.

Caliber:  a vast majority of ticket holders wanted the thing in .308 Win, and almost nobody wanted .30-06 or 6.5 Creedmoor.  Also check.

Readers who recall my experiences with the Howa HCR 1500 from last year may recall that I loved the rifle.  (Cliff Notes:  more accurate than anyone (let alone I) could shoot it, outstanding trigger — just about the perfect rifle at that price point, or indeed at almost any price point.)

So just for the hell of it, I looked at doing the Howa again, and found this situation:

And here’s where the problem comes in.  The two rifles pictures have the same silky bolt action, the same astounding trigger, and the same hammer-forged heavy barrel — in other words, mechanically they are identical.

Where they differ, of course, is in the stock setup — the Hogue is free-floated but not “chassis” based, whereas the Oryx is a true bench rifle.  (As pictured, the Hogue weighs in at about 8lbs, whereas the Oryx weighs just over 10lbs — the latter being irrelevant as it’s being fired from a bench, and heavier weight is actually a positive attribute.)

That $270 price difference, however, sticks in my craw.  (Oh, and the Hogue is available immediately, but the Oryx is on backorder at five different outlets, where I’ve put myself on a notification list, just in case.)

What say you, O My Readers?

Silly Question

Drive Time, Music

I absolutely ruled in the late 1970s… the first few years, not so much because I was still figuring out which end was up and what all these things were to be used for.  If you know what I mean.  But by 1975… hubba hubba.

My old VW panel van wasn’t pimped up like the above, but it worked just fine all the same.  (I had a bumper sticker on the back which read “Go ahead and laugh — your daughter may be inside”.)  It looked like this, but was more of a bamboo color:

And then there was the music… even the bad ones are better than the crap we hear today.

I carried a Colt Combat Commander, my .22 pistol was a Beretta Model 75, my .22 rifle was a Winchester 63, and my hunting rifle was the old Israeli Mauser in 7.62mm NATO:

   ……

Simpler times, easier life.  I miss the 70s, a lot.

Fixed

Guy Stuff, The Gun Thing

Several people wrote to me — close to a dozen, in fact — all offering help in replacing the broken extractor from my battered but much-loved Inland M1 Carbine, and to all those people, please accept my sincerest thanks.

However, Longtime Reader Hank T. not only offered to replace the busted part, but to show me in person how simple a job it is — ha! — provided that one has the proper little G.I. tool which acts as a third hand.  As he lives less than an hour from my apartment, that meant not having to send parts to different parts of the Lower 48.  So yesterday I went over to his place, handed over said broken carbine, and within a half-hour the whole thing had been stripped, cleaned lubed and oh yes had received a new extractor.  It works!

I’m bending the truth a little here in describing the above as a half-hour job, because while the operation itself only  took about half an hour, I spent close to three hours in his workshop because he has all sorts of wonderful bangsticks in his possession.  And you know what that means, right?  I had to hold, and caress, and work the actions of said guns one by one because I’m a gun molester lover and the easiest way to make me purr is to hand me a beautiful gun with an exhortation to “just try that trigger”.

Drooling, lots of drooling, followed.  But clearly my orgasmic cries had disturbed Hank’s darling wife, who came to the workshop to see what all the fuss was about, and that added an hour onto the whole thing because a) she’s a darling and b) she has traveled to many of the places I have, so much experience-swapping took place.

I love to spend time with my Readers on a one-to-one basis, because while you’ve heard many of my stories and adventures on this back porch, I haven’t heard your stories and adventures, and I drink that stuff like I would a fine single malt.

And when I get a renewed gun out of it, as I did here, it’s all the finer.  I am the world’s worst gunsmith because I’m not mechanically-minded (rather the opposite), and I have no patience with inanimate objects — not your best qualities for a gunsmith, I think we can all agree — so I far prefer to hand my problem over to someone who knows what he’s doing and (as in this case) has the proper tools for the job.

So many thanks, Hank, and yes I absolutely want to spend some time at the range with you.  Let me know when you’re free.